


Until The Last Petal Should Fall

by cryptidkickflip



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 05:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18653599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidkickflip/pseuds/cryptidkickflip
Summary: Once upon a time, a young Altean maiden falls in love...





	Until The Last Petal Should Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fandoms_Everywhere_United](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandoms_Everywhere_United/gifts).



> Cheers, Kerry! Here's hoping this is painful enough for ya. ;)

Allura first noticed the tightness in her chest during a mission. It was nothing if not routine, a simple sweep of a seemingly unoccupied planet.

“You alright, princess?” Hunk asked over the coms. She hadn’t realized she’d been breathing so heavily that it could be heard over the radio.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little winded, is all.” She said. Hunk hummed suspiciously. She didn’t blame him. Her reedy voice failed to convince herself, let alone her team.

“Do you need to go back to the castle?” Lance asked, worry clear in his tone. They were split up, each scanning for signs of life in separate quadrants, each close enough to offer one another support but spread out enough to be efficient with the search.

Lance’s voice made the back of her throat tickle and she cleared her throat in annoyance.

“No.” She said, frowning as she looked at the scan. The screen still showed nothing and she tapped her armrest with a finger in impatience. “I’ll get some water when we get back to the castle.”

“Alright,” Lance said suspiciously. “Then let’s get this bad boy over with.”

They finished the scan nearly three vargas later, finding nothing. Not even any small animals or plant lifeforms.

By the end of the three vargas, Allura’s little throat tickle had progressed to a periodic wet cough, coming from deep in her chest and making her gag.

“Jesus, Allura,” Lance said, meeting her at the hangar for Blue. “That sounds really bad. I’m going to go get Coran. Go have a seat in the kitchen.”

“Okay,” She said, following Hunk.

“I’ll make some of that tea we got at the space mall awhile back,” Hunk said, opening cupboards and pulling down a mug and a kettle. “Tea always makes my throat feel better. I just wish we had some honey and lemon,” Hunk mused, keeping Allura focused on anything but how Lance’s hand had felt on her forehead when he checked for a fever.

She knew she was being foolish.

Lance didn’t have the time for her silly children’s crush. None of the Paladins did. They were at _war_.

Besides, all it could ever be is a fling. A lark. A dream for her to disappear in. He didn’t think of her that way. She was sure of it.

Just last movement, she’d seen him flirting with some delegates at a ball, hosted on the planet Hrothgar. He was surrounded by a group of the Hrothgarians, telling them stories about previous missions.

In true Lance form, he was exaggerating, making the Paladins look like the heroes of yore. Every tale got bigger and bigger. The bigger the tale got, the more the Hrothgarians gathered round and the more Lance made them swoon.

The Hrothgarians weren’t the only ones enchanted.

When Allura had first laid eyes on Lance, she was disoriented, mere ticks out of the pod, and he’d tried to flirt with her.

She’d never seen anyone from Earth before.

At first it had irritated her.

But the longer they spent together, the more Allura saw of Lance.

She saw him bringing Pidge snacks when she was working at all times in the lab. She saw him dancing in the kitchen as he helped Hunk make meals. She saw him perk up with excitement when Shiro told him he was doing well in training. She saw him in his never-ending quest to get a leg up on Keith.

Coran told him all the stories he could muster, and Lance pretended to be irritated, but Allura noticed that he would go sit by him sometimes after dinner, setting himself up for another one of Coran’s epic tales.

She liked to think that they’d grown close.

Another cough wracked her body, wet and miserable, as Hunk set down her mug.

“Holy crap, Princess. You ever get something like this before?” He asked, leaning against the counter with a frown.

“No. This is entirely new.”

“Hopefully, Coran will know what to do.”

* * *

 

Coran had been roused by an increasingly frantic Lance. Mentally, Allura was lying dead on the kitchen floor as Lance sprinted around the castle, looking in every nook and cranny for Coran that he knew the other man to linger in.

He finally found him on the bridge, looking over the scans from their mission.

“Hey, Coran?” Lance called, out of breath. “You know that cough that Allura had when we were on mission?”

Coran turned to look at him, concerned, before closing down the screens and moving to follow Lance as he ran back to the kitchen.

“Yes, I was going to check in on her after I looked over the scans,” Coran said, jogging to keep up.

“Well, it got worse,” Lance replied, sliding around the bend on the soles of his shoes.

They ran into the kitchen together, their speed picking up the closer they got to their destination. In both of their minds, Allura was lying asphyxiated on the floor, dead before they ever got the chance to try and help her.

By all means, they weren’t far from the truth.

Hunk was standing over her, rubbing her back and urging her to drink some of the tea, that it would help.

Allura was curled in on herself, her hair falling all around her, and coughing with everything she had in her. It sounded like she was trying to get something loose in her chest. She couldn’t get a breath in.

“Coran! I don’t know what to do,” Hunk said, locking eyes with him in fear. “She just started getting this bad a few ticks ago,”

“Get her to the med bay,” Coran ordered, turning back around to hold the door open for Hunk. He scooped her right off of the chair and into his arms. Lance stopped to pick up the tea, just in case it would help, and followed Hunk out of the door.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Lance demanded, trying his best not to slosh all of the tea out of the mug and onto the floor.

“No,” Coran admitted, half turning in their sprint to the med bay. “But I have a cough suppressant that may help her until we find out.”

Allura was finally able to take a rattling breath.

Her head was spinning and black spots danced across her vision. Her throat felt raw and her ribs ached.

Where the hell had this cough _came from_? She hadn’t even felt under the weather when she’d woken up that morning, and suddenly she was genuinely afraid for her health and wellbeing.

 Hunk carefully put her down on one of the exam tables and she tried to stay sitting up, but all of the coughing had sapped her of her strength.

“Lay down, Princess,” Lance said, putting his hand on her back. Where he touched her ached, bone deep. “We’ll get you fixed up, okay?”

“Okay,” She rasped.

The simple act of talking spurred another round of choking, gasping coughs. She curled around herself, her body shaking and tears leaking out of her eyes.

“Coran,” Lance said, voice breaking. “What’s happening?”

“I don’t know,” Coran said, nearly swiping everything off of the counter in his haste to finish making the cough suppressant. “Okay, please, sit her up as best as you can.”

“C’mon, Princess,” Lance said as Hunk moved to the other side of her to brace her into a partially upright position.

Allura tried her best to stymy the coughing jag, but there wasn’t much that she could do other than hope she didn’t lose consciousness due to lack of air.

Everything from her head to her toes _ached_.

What had gone so wrong?

It felt like a quintant, but in a few moments the coughing trickled down to almost nothing and Coran held the cup up to her lips. She drank as quickly as she dared, the medicine tasting foul and acerbic. He must’ve skipped the flavouring in his haste to get it to her, and she couldn’t say she faulted him.

She wasn’t sure if she could take another round of coughing like that.

“It should take only a dobosh to take hold,” Coran said. They were all hovering, watching her.

Allura felt the telltale tickle in the back of her throat and she braced herself. Her hands fumbled, looking for anything to grip onto to hold herself steady as she began to cough, and her right hand found Lance’s.

He held on tight, abject horror reflecting back in his eyes as she covered her mouth with her left hand.

This time, she felt something shift in her chest.

Something broke loose, and she could feel it inching up her throat with every gasping, wheezing cough.

Allura took as deep a breath as she could manage and coughed _hard_ , trying to force the thing out once and for all so that she could possibly be free of this horrible affliction.

The obstruction forced its way out of her throat, making her gag and nearly vomit up the cough suppressant.

It was wet and slimy, bright red in her palm.

The colour made her start, but as she moved her hand away from her mouth, she realized it wasn’t blood.

A shock of adrenaline shot down her spine once it clicked in her mind what it was.

A single red flower petal.

* * *

 

Thankfully, the cough suppressant put Allura to sleep. It was a deep, dreamless sleep, and her stillness unnerved Lance to no end. She was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, still lying in her armour.

It looked as if she were dead.

Only the occasional shallow rise and fall of her chest assured him that she was still alive.

“Where could she have gotten sick like this?” Keith was asking from across the room. They all spoke in hushed tones, not willing to leave the room and leave her alone, lest she would get worse while they were gone.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Coran replied. The flower petal sat on a small dish on the other examination table, under the bright light.

Pidge had already scanned it and she was tapping away at a datapad nearby, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Hunk looked over her shoulder, frowning and pointing at the occasional reading.

“This says it’s definitely a rose petal. Where would she have come into contact with a flower from Earth?” Hunk asked, looking nervously from the datapad to the petal on the table.

“No idea,” Lance said, crossing then uncrossing his arms. “And how would it have gotten into her lungs like that?”

“There’s got to be something that we’re missing,” Pidge muttered, opening page after page on the datapad. “Rose petals don’t just show up in somebody’s lungs.”

“No shit,” Keith huffed. There wasn’t any heat behind the statement. Only exhaustion. He’d tugged at his hair so much that it stood up in haphazard tufts around his head and the dark circles under his eyes that had grown more pronounced since he became the Black Paladin now appeared to be etched in his skin.

He looked gaunt, ill.

With a pang of fear, Lance wondered if he would be the next on the table.

How long would it be until every single one of them was gone?

If this war had taken Shiro, the strongest out of all of them, and Allura, the bravest… Who was next?

He wasn’t strong like Shiro, or brave like Allura, or smart like Pidge, or passionate like Keith, or even nearly as loyal as Hunk. Coran had all the knowledge in the galaxy, and the fact that he didn’t have the answer made Lance feel a chill of terror go down his spine a second time.

“So what do we do? Do we keep feeding her this cough stuff until it goes away?” Lance said, waving his hands in frustration.

“We’re working on it,” Pidge said, holding up the datapad with a frown. “There can’t be that many illnesses that force someone to cough up flowers.”

“Give us a varga, maybe two.” Hunk said.

“I’ll help you look,” Coran said. “Let’s go to the bridge. We’ll get the bigger computers involved,”

Hunk, Pidge and Coran filed out of the medbay, bouncing ideas off of each other and strategizing the best way to canvass the most amount of information in the least amount of time.

“I’ll stay here with the Princess,” Lance declared, moving to a nearby chair to collapse.

“Do you… Want me to stay?” Keith asked, shifting on his feet.

“You can if you want,” Lance offered tiredly.

“I might… I think I’ll go help them,” He said, moving to the door. “If you guys need anything, just ask, okay?” Keith said, leveling Lance with a look.

“I will. Thank you.” He replied, nodding once.

Keith nodded back before turning to the door.

With that, Lance was left watching over Allura as she slept.

He hoped he wouldn’t be at his post for long.

* * *

 

When Allura woke next, it was to a silence in the room, cut only by deep breathing by someone behind her. She stirred, the movement forcing a tired cough out of her.

It wasn’t as bad as it had been prior to taking the medicine, but it still made her ache.

The noise woke whoever had been sleeping behind her and she heard a chair slide out and feet rush toward her.

“Princess! You’re awake,” It was Lance. He bent over her to help her sit up. “Everyone else is at the bridge, doing research,” He said quickly. “Can I get you anything?”

He looked tired. She felt a stab of shame at catching whatever this was and making everyone worry about her. That was her job, as the princess. She was supposed to be the one looking after everyone else, not the other way around.

Nevermind that she was just as young as they were. Nevermind that she was one of the very last of a dying race, her entire planet erased from the universe and the history books by a war they had not yet won.

And here she was, wishing that she could just melt into Lance’s arms and stay safe forever.

“Water,” She rasped, sitting up on her own power on shaky arms.

“Be right back, okay?” Lance said, worry clear on his face. He moved quickly to the other side of the room, to the tray of water, hot water in a thermos, a small pile of tea bags, and two mugs that Keith had awkwardly dropped off a few minutes after he’d left the first time.

Lance could tell that he was trying so hard to fill Shiro’s shoes. For the sake of the rest of the team, he hoped that someday soon they fit him.

They needed all the help they could get holding this shit together.

Lance brought Allura the tray, setting it down on the other examination table.

“Do you think you’ll be able to drink some more tea? You don’t have to have more of the cough medicine for another few vargas yet, but the tea might help with your sore throat,” Lance said, holding up the mug.

Allura could only nod. Her throat was so raw she felt like crying, but her eyes were raw as well.

Lance poured out the hot water and put the tea bag in, turning to rest on the exam table as it steeped.

“When I got sick as a kid, my mom would make me this soup. It had chicken and noodles and all the veggies that she could sneak in there,” He chuckled, looking down at the floor with a sad smile. “She’d let me have ice lollies to make my throat feel better, and she’d put a cool flannel on my head for a fever.” He paused, tilting his head. “Do you think that would help?”

“We can try,” Allura said weakly after a painful swallow of water.

“Anything could help,” Lance said, moving over to the sink. He took a clean flannel out of the drawer and ran water over it, ringing it out with his back to Allura. “We’re going to figure this out, okay?” Lance said, turning and looking at Allura. He squared his shoulders with a determined look on his face. “So just worry about feeling better, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

“Okay,” Allura said. She believed him. “I’m tired.”

“I’ll go get you some pyjamas and a blanket,” Lance said, putting the mug of tea on the table near her. “I’ll be right back.”

Lance ducked out of the medbay. Tears pricked Allura’s eyes and she took a slow breath in, however shallow.

She didn’t have _time_ for this.

Nothing was more important than defeating the Galra once and for all. She couldn’t waste her time pining for a man who would never love her back. She couldn’t put people’s lives on the line by getting distracted with the domesticity of Lance making her a cup of tea when she should be focusing on how to better save the universe.

It was only a cup of tea.

Why was she on the verge of tears over a cup of tea?

She tried to tell herself that she was feverish and irrational, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that sat heavily in her stomach at watching Lance try and take care of her. She wanted him to do that every day. She wanted to reciprocate.

She wanted a life with him.

Allura took a sip of the tea and allowed the warmth to soothe her miserably dry throat and she made herself a promise.

If they managed to do the impossible and win this war, if she and Lance both made it out on the other side with lives left to live, she would try her best to ensure that they could live them together.

First, she had to make sure there was a universe in which to do so.

* * *

 

Lance returned sheepishly a few minutes later, holding a pile of blue clothing, some blankets, and a pillow. Allura cocked her head at him, having finished her tea and set another cup to steep.

“I… Felt weird going into your bedroom. I just brought mine.” He went red, starting from his neck and working its way up his face as he tried his hardest to look at anything but her face. “They’re clean!” He said, holding up a hand in protest and nearly toppling the whole stack.

“It’s fine,” She said, chuckling lightly. It sounded more like a wheeze and it brought on another round of coughing, but nothing as bad as before.

“I’ll just… Go stand out here.” Lance said, jerking his thumb at the door.

“I need help out of my armour,” Allura said between coughs. Lance stopped in his tracks.

“Of course.”

They each wore a bodysuit beneath the armour, but as Lance came closer, Allura felt the dawning horror that it didn’t really cover much.

Lance came over and began to gently undo the clasps on the sides of the armour for her. She felt as though his hands were superheated, each point of contact a brand on her skin. Was this typical of whatever illness she had come down with?

“There. You should be free,” Lance said, tugging the last of the armour from her with a nervous chuckle. “I’ll go,” He picked up her armour. “I’ll put this in the hangar.”

“Thank you, Lance. Really.” She said, looking up at him in gratitude.

“Don’t mention it,” Lance replied, pausing and giving her a considering look. “You should let someone take care of you, for a change.”

With that, he left, leaving Allura feeling more out of breath than she had after her coughing fits.

She wished it could be him.

She pulled off her bodysuit, the stretchy material sticking to her sweat-slick skin and making her grimace. She knew with a confidence that she would probably fall and hurt herself if she tried to bathe.

How was she supposed to endure wearing his pyjamas?

How was she supposed to handle the small part of her that wanted them to be the ones he’d already worn so that she could wrap herself in the smell of his soap and fall asleep there?

By the time Lance came back, she was dressed and under the blanket, curled up on the exam table.

“Get some more rest. It’ll be another few doboshes before they get done researching.” He said, moving to the chair.

Allura was already halfway to sleep.

Her last waking thought, absurd as it may be, was an idle, drifting thing, born of exhaustion and heartache. _Would Lance be mad if she cried on his pillow?_

* * *

 

Keith, Coran, Hunk, and Pidge returned to the med bay quietly some time later. Lance hadn’t fallen back asleep and instead had taken to ensuring that the flannel on Allura’s head maintained optimum coolness and had taken one hurried run to the kitchen for some more hot water.

“Did you find anything?” Lance asked, turning to his teammates.

From the grim looks on their faces, he almost wished that they hadn’t.

“We did,” Coran said, looking to Hunk and Pidge with a frown. “The only mention of anything like this was in an old copy of an Altean storybook, from when I myself was a child.”

“A storybook?” Lance asked, frowning between them.

“It’s an old tale,” Coran said, looking at Allura’s sleeping form with worry. “The story goes that when a young Altean falls in love, a flower blooms near their heart. They water that flower every day with love, and one day the object of their affection will come to pick that flower and they will live forever on in happiness.”

Lance waited, knowing that there was a ‘but’ in there and it was coming up soon.

“But if the person they loved never came to pick the flower, it would grow so large that it would consume them. They would die full of the blooms.” Coran said hoarsely. He looked as though the strings holding him up were cut and he dropped into the chair behind him.

“So… Allura’s being killed by a faerie tale sickness?” Keith asked, blinking in confusion. “Why can’t we just ask her who it is?”

“It’s not that simple,” Pidge said, pulling up a page on her datapad. “She has to believe that the other person loves her back.”

“Well, if we find out who it is, we can find out if they love her back,” Keith said, shaking his head minutely.

“What if they don’t?” Hunk asked, making the room go somehow more still than before.

“Is there anything we can do if they don’t?” Lance asked, going cold all over.

“We cross-referenced the story with some of the few medical records we have left, and it looks like there may be a procedure we can do to take the seed out,” Pidge said slowly. “But the notes said that there were some serious side-effects.”

“Like what?” Lance said, gripping the mug in his hand tighter. Scenarios of Allura being hooked up to breathing machines and being horrible disfigured ran rampant through his mind, making his stomach flip over in terror.

“The love that she had for the other person will be lost. Forever.” Coran said mournfully.

“God,” Lance breathed, all the air rushing out of him in a rush. “That’s…”

“What’s worse?” Keith breathed, glaring down at the ground. “Not being with someone you loved, or death?”

“That’s a decision Allura’s going to have to make for herself,” Lance said, looking sharply at Keith. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but… If I just lost all of the love I had for someone, I’d be devastated.”

“Of course she would. That’s not what I’m saying,” Keith said, crossing his arms. “But at least she would still be here to feel that way.”

“But what if they’re the love of her life! What if they’re her soulmate?” Lance asked, throwing his arm out to the side.

“Then they’ll love her back, and all of this will be pointless,” Keith replied, his chin raising in defiance. Lance shook his head and leant back on the counter. In the beat of silence, Hunk looked around.

“So… Who do you think it is?” He asked, looking around the room. “What if it’s one of us?”

The assembled Paladins looked around, each sizing each other up and analyzing who Allura could possibly be so in love with that actual flowers began to grow in her lungs.

“What if…” Keith asked, his voice broken and hoarse. “What if it’s Shiro?”

* * *

 

Lance sat on his now-naked bed. He’d been relieved of guard duty by Coran. He hadn’t wanted to leave, but Coran insisted that he go and get a shower and get some rest.

He couldn’t sleep.

Not knowing that Allura could be killed by some murderous love-plant any minute.

She’d woken up just before he left and even though she’d just taken her second dose of the cough suppressant, she still brought up three more petals.

They were from red roses, too.

Lance couldn’t help but feel sick. He remembered when he was a kid, his mother had a rosebush that she cherished. Every day his father would come home from work and pick her a rose from the bush, and every day his mother would put it in a vase in the middle of the table during dinner.

One day, he asked his mom why she spent so much time taking care of her rose bush just so that his dad could pick them all off.

She had picked him up and set him on her lap on the couch.

“I do it because I love him.” She said, holding his hand in hers and giving him a gentle smile.

“But he picks the roses for you,” He said, tilting his head to the side and looking at her with those big blue eyes.

“Of course. The most important part of loving somebody else is remembering to let them love you back.”

Red roses.

They looked so wrong and unnatural tumbling out of Allura’s mouth, making her whole body wrack with sobs from the pain.

Lance couldn’t even imagine.

She’d fallen right back to sleep after that, any energy she’d gained from the sleep she’d had before taken from passing three more rose petals.

“I’ll give her a third dose soon. It won’t hurt her. It should get her to a place where we can tell her what we’ve found, and she can make her decision.” Coran said decisively, going to mix the cough medicine again. “Please, Lance. Get some rest.”

He laid on his back on the bed. Allura had his pillows and his blankets, so he took off his jacket and draped it over his torso numbly.

He didn’t want to think about her decision.

He didn’t want to know if she chose to tell the one she loved or if she didn’t.

He didn’t want to know that it wasn’t him.

* * *

 

Lance woke up, stiff and cold, only a handful of doboshes later. He thought he’d been asleep for vargas, but time worked differently in space, especially when he was so stressed.

He shuffled his way to the kitchen, hoping to scare up some grub.

His stomach growled at the smell of some good food, wafting out of the kitchen and making its way directly to his gut.

Hunk had to be cooking.

He opened the door to the kitchen to a surprise.

Keith stood at the stove, blearily stirring a pot and rubbing his eyes. He held a cup of the space coffee that they’d found at the space mall (Lance could almost hear Shiro’s voice teasing all of them that adding ‘space’ to everything didn’t just automatically make it cooler,) in the other hand.

“Um. Hey,” Lance called. Keith probably would have jumped sky high had he not been so tired.

“Oh,” He said simply, turning to look at him through slitted eyes. “Sorry. I’ll be out of your way in a second,” He said, shutting off the heat.

“What are you making?” Lance asked, cautioning another sniff. It was spicy and savoury smelling, making his mouth water.

“I… Don’t actually fully know,” Keith admitted. “I found a food I liked at one of the diplomat things awhile back and asked them how to make it.”

“Oh. Smells delicious.” Lance admitted, sliding into a seat at the counter.

“Want some? I made a bunch,” Keith offered stiltedly. Lance could tell he was in unnavigated territory and he shrugged. The part of him that was still Keith’s rival wanted him to take pride in Keith being on uneven footing, but he was too tired to try and compete with him on cooking, or with niceness, or how many cups of space coffee he could drink before he phased into an alternate dimension where literally anything was going right instead of pear-shaped—

Lance’s inner monologue (diatribe?) was interrupted with a bowl being slid across the counter in front of him, a spoon unceremoniously dropped at its side, and Keith sliding into the chair next to him.

He wasted no time in digging in.

His nose had not betrayed him; it was delicious. It was everything he wanted at that moment in time, warm and spicy and soothing.

They ate in silence, both of them too tired to try and make small talk.

When the bowls were washed and dried and well on their way to being put away, Keith spoke.

“What if it is Shiro?” He asked, giving Lance a look.

He was laying himself bare, here. Lance could almost feel the depth of emotion behind that question alone.

“I don’t know,” Lance said truthfully.

“We… He’s…” Keith said, shaking his head in frustration. Whether it was at himself or at the fact that Shiro was still gone, he couldn’t know, but Keith slumped against the counter, putting his head on his forearms.

“We’ll find him,” Lance said quietly. “I know how hard it’s gotta be on you.”

“Yeah,” Keith said simply, sagging another fraction of an inch. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Lance said, and he meant it. He didn’t know what he was sorry for. He only knew that he was.

After a moment, Keith stood back up and gathered himself to give Lance a nod.

“Thanks.” He said.

“I’m going to go check on Allura,” Lance said, ticking his head toward the door.

“I’ll be in the training room,” Keith said, moving toward the door. Lance shot him a tired thumbs up and left, holding the door for Keith, before they went their separate ways.

* * *

 

Allura felt a little floaty and her chest ached, but she wasn’t in too much pain. She didn’t know that she would fully feel it if she _did_ start coughing again, but she didn’t think she had.

“You don’t have to make any decisions right now,” Coran was saying. “But you will have to, and soon. Your condition is declining,” He said carefully.

“More flowers,” She said weakly, looking down at her lap. They were starting to come out in clumps now, connected until there was nearly a full bloom.

“Yes, Princess. More flowers.” Coran said gently, squeezing her hand. “Princess, please… Could you just tell me who it is?”

They were alone, for the time being, the Paladins giving them space.

She thought it over once.

The only way she could live and keep her feelings for Lance was if he loved her back, but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t possibly feel the same way for her that she did for him. There was a time where she could have entertained the thought, but he was just so outgoing. He could find someone better suited for him than herself.

No matter how much she wanted to, she could never give him the life she knew he wanted. She would always be the Crown Princess of Altea. She would never be able to shirk her title and go back to Earth with him and live a life of feet in the sand by the ocean.

He could find better.

The smallest, yet loudest part of her heart begged her to do nothing.

That part of her couldn’t see surviving in a world without wanting him. It had been the driving force behind her motivation as of late.

She reasoned that the sooner the war ended, the sooner she could try and navigate any kind of relationship with him beyond that of teammates, allies, and hopefully friends.

There was a knock on the door.

“Hey, can I come in?” Lance’s voice called, making her heart drop. He opened the door slightly to peer in for the answer.

“Of course,” She said, sitting up slightly.

“I was just checking in,” Lance said, looking between Coran and Allura with a frown. “You feeling any better?”

“Marginally,” Allura allowed, giving him a wan smile.

“So… What do you think we should do?” Lance asked cautiously. “Do you know who it is?”

“I… Do,” Allura said, shifting on the exam table. “I’m not sure what the best course of action should be.” She said, turning to Coran with a frown.

“Well,” Lance said, putting a hand on the back of his neck. “I think that Keith was probably right, for what it’s worth.” He admitted with a chuckle. “If you tell the person, then the person could tell you whether or not they love you back.” He said brightly. “And then… If they don’t, which would be dumb, then you could… Go from there, I guess.”

“I don’t want to tell them,” Allura said quietly, pulling her knees close. Another coughing fit wracked her body, forcing a neatly formed rosebud into the palm of her hand.

“Princess,” Coran said, looking down at the rose. “I would ask you to rethink that. When they begin to come out fully formed, the myth states that it may be the beginning of the end.”

“The end?” Lance said, panic forcing his voice up several octaves. “Princess, you can tell us,” He said, a pleading tone entering his voice as he shifted forward on his chair.

“I can’t… I can’t do that to them, I’m sorry,” Allura said, voice wavering.

“What could go wrong?” Lance asked, taking the barest step closer to Allura’s table.

“Everything,” She said, looking up at him. “I can’t burden them with that,”

“Allura,” Lance said, voice breaking. “We’re all friends. You’d never be a burden, especially not with something that’s literally life or death.”

“Yes, Lance, the person and I... We’re friends.” Allura said with an air of finality. “That’s all we’ll ever be.”

* * *

 

With the medical documents that Hunk, Pidge, and Coran had found, it was easy to perform the surgery. Almost too easy.

There wasn’t any blood. Any gore.

A simple camera scope and a sleeping medication later, and there was a brown seed sitting on a tray on the exam table, next to the tea that had long since gone cold and a pile of wilted rose petals.

Allura slept on as the Paladins and Coran sat in the kitchen.

No one spoke.

Hunk went about making the evening meal, quietly, as though a clatter of a pan could break the air around him.

Lance sat and stared at his hands.

He couldn’t help but wonder if whoever it was felt it. Whatever Altean magic that caused the rose to grow in Allura’s chest might’ve formed a connection, he reasoned. Maybe that person felt the pain of a potential bond being broken, a potential soulmate being whisked away from them.

As for himself?

He felt nothing. Nothing at all.

* * *

 

When Allura woke, it to the realization of the weight of what she had done. Panic coursed through her, assuring her that removing the seed hadn’t left her completely devoid of emotion. She swung her legs off of the exam table, breathing freely for the first time in what felt like ages.

She moved toward the other exam table and saw the seed.

It was a tiny thing, barely the size of her thumbnail. She couldn’t believe that that was the thing that had caused her so much pain and heartache. 

She couldn’t believe that this was the only thing left of what had been her feelings for Lance.

Even staring at it, the act already done and the consequences rushing up to meet her, she was sure that she had made the right decision.

She couldn’t trap Lance in a life that he would never want to live. Lance being Lance, he would have tried. She could have told him and he would have _tried_ to love her back.

He may have even meant it.

But he would regret it, she knew.

Be it in phoebe or a deca-phoebe, he would realize that she would never be able to be the person that he needed.

Maybe by making the decision that she had, she’d been the closest to someone good for him that she’d ever get.

Allura turned away from the seed and, still wearing Lance’s pyjamas, she made her way to the kitchen.

The fact that she was wrapped in his blanket no longer gave her the thrill that it once had and that filled her with a pang of sorrow that she pushed away.

Once the war was over, she would mourn.

When Allura entered the kitchen, she saw everyone swivel to look at her and she waved once, looking around the room.

“Thank you all,” She said quietly, giving everyone a nod. “Just… Thank you.”

“No problem, Princess,” Lance said, coming back from his state of shock before everyone else had. “It’s our job. We’re your friends.”

“Right,” Allura agreed, sitting down at the table. Hunk and Keith moved the food from the kitchen to the table and they began to eat, discussion to a minimum. Allura could feel people tossing her glances and saw each of them begin to say something to her, but deciding better of it, more than once.

Most of all, Lance. He’d barely touched his meal, pushing it around on his plate with his fork and staring resolutely at the table in between aborted questions.

Watching him stirred a wave of compassion in her, the same as she would have felt watching a perfect stranger struggle, but gone was the swell of affection for him that she had felt before.

She felt empty. Hollow.

Like the flowers had gone, but taken far more than that with it.

The food in her mouth had gone dry and she swallowed, her sore throat protesting the whole way.

They were friends. And that’s all they could ever be.


End file.
